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Maybe it's time to stop simply trying to win an argument and work on relationships. A mix of the two helps keep shit from getting silly. My major malfunction with SST is he has not learned this lesson, and the smartest guy in the world is not going to change the world until he heeds this advice.

Remember our mission here. It is not to change everyone's political ideology, but to address issues concerning men and boys.

Comment

Here's my first problem...I don't get why leftists who have issue with intervention in Iraq which they see as snatch and grab operation for resources and capital also support an open boarder policy in relation to the very people who's nation's they believe their governments have raped and plundered?

Isn't that a bit like breaking a guy's nose then dropping your hands and waiting for him to counter?

Don't they GET that in accordance with Islamic doctrine the voting public in any democracy are accountable for the actions of their elected governments?

I mean if you support the leftist argument that these foreign policy misadventures were war crimes (and I don't wholly disagree with that narrative myself) you can't also think it's a good idea to invite in a bunch of people that your governments committed war crimes against into your nation.

It's kinda like saying to a guy 'sorry I broke your nose, I'd really like to make it up to you, please come into my house and fuck my wife'

the interventions in the Arab Spring, particularly Libya and the outcomes of those have left a deep dissatisfaction with government decisions, and also distrust for oil companies and arms manufacturers who are felt to be benefiting.

Sure. But we (in the west) are not energy independent so we need to do one of three things -

1) remove all the green bullshit and work towards energy independence in tandem with an isolationist foreign policy. (my preferred right wing position)
2) accept that we have to do business with some unsavory mother fuckers around the globe who's values we don't share (again not something I give a fuck about as a right winger).
3) attempt to dispose unsavory people and promote and install pro-west rulers likely to implement 'western style democracy'

Of these options I am most against 3. I don't think America or any other nation's men should be dying for anyone else's freedom. If they want it let them fight for it. I also don't think we or any other nation has a duty of care with regards to their refugees. Their civil conflicts, their humanitarian crisis. Our own nation is on it's knees. The middle class is fucked.

Our own people need help and support. Charity starts at home.

We can't worry about Syrians before we fix Chicago and Baltimore and Detroit.

Moreover all organic people's revolts in the entire history of the middle east have led to MORE Islamic LESS pro-western regimes. So our intervention will only ever amount to replacing Muslim despots with our preferred secularist ones. That shit didn't exactly work out as planned historically in Iran or Iraq and it's not going fare any better next time round. It's a losing play.

What's funny about 3 is that isn't not as much a neo-con thing as it first appears. Feminists/progressives are firmly on board with this too.

Only they come at it from the whole 'birth control and bras' for the girls of Africa and Malala and hastags against Boka Haram side of it.

Soft interventionism is supported by the establishment left as much as hard interventionism is supported by sections of the establishment right.

Afghanistan is suspected as being more about oil pipelines and mineral extraction. That negativity and suspicion hasn't gone away, just been pushed under surface by the terrorism and migrant / refugee crisis.

I think the fatal error those on the left make is this.

For the average white liberal being pissed off with your government is like being pissed off with your daddy. You might want to punch him in the face...but at the end of the day he's still your daddy.

That's not how the average Muslim migrant feels about it. It's not HIS daddy. It's his foreign invader. His oppressor. His invading raping pirate. His mortal enemy.

This is where the left goes wrong in getting in bed with jew-hating Muslim migrants from a position of apparent united opposition to neo-con interventionism.

The enemy of your enemy is not your friends. These people wanna smoke Gay pride marchers in g-strings as much as they want to smoke Bush and Blair any Jew they can lay their hands on.

Comment

Add to this you have the 2008 banking crisis, and the solutions being banking and corporate welfare.

That's an interesting one. Because right wingers oppose that because they see it as a left thing. And leftists oppose it as a right thing. What you end up with is a mass of people 'united' on opposition while coming at it from different sides of the horse shoe.

Even if people weren't sympathetic to a left wing rise in Greece, many were sympathetic to plight of the Greek people and the message made by an effective overruling of their democratic will.

Yeah. It's outrageous. As much as I'm anti-left I think the EU essentially telling the people of Greece that they can't have the left wing government they voted for is just fucking insane. And the only thing more shocking about this is how 'unshocked' the average European seems to be about it.

The core of most of these events has been, rightly or wrong assigned to the right wing politicians and by extension to the right wing mindset. I don't agree with it being extended to the right wing mindset, nor do I like the left wing tactic of calling ring wing mindset racist to exclude them. But when it comes to economic decisions, which have inflated and bubbled the housing market, and inflated the equity market then I do think, economically right wing politicians inc those like Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, Barack Obama (etc wearing left wing cloaks) are to blame rather than left wing politicians like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbin.

But are they 'wearing left wing cloaks' or is a 'cloak' all that much of this left wing stuff ever is in the first place?

The Left movement has latched on to these dissatisfactions and used left wing social and morality policy concessions made by all political fronts, corporations and institutions, esp pandering to feminists, to launch an all out offensive or power grab over economic, democratic and justice policy.

The assault is predicated on blaming the right wing mindset, that brings in right wing politicians. You can point to the rise of hard right and even far right politicians in countries impacted, but it's rising at a time when left wing sentiment hasn't actually started to recede.

Well what the media calls the far right is really just all the people the new left left behind. The further the left disappeared down it's own asshole worrying about Feminist bullshit and 6'5 250lbs trannies' right to take a shit next your wife and 8 year old daughter the more they simply alienate the core base upon which their power plays depend.

The ordinary little working man. Feminism has played a critical role in increasingly turning the left into a place where the working man is not only not welcome but to blame for everyone else's issues.

I've lived through right and left cycles before, things are bit different now because internet makes things faster, and the argument descends quicker since we don't have anything resembling either a non partisan media or an honest set of opposing media. This is resulting in a lot of friction and melee, and that is resulting in a far more rapid rise of hardened and even extreme views.

Would you say firstly any political leadership is actually without blame? And secondly can this actually be laid down as failings of either left wing mindset, right wing mindset or any combination of both?

I think social media is turning everyone into a diva. Surrounded by 'yes men' and people who 'like' everything they say. With ignore/block buttons for everyone that tells them things they don't want to hear.

Comment

Add to this you have the 2008 banking crisis, and the solutions being banking and corporate welfare.

LoL, the recovery is one thing. The cause is a complete other. The real question is not about second guessing reactionary solutions because the facts say most if not all the recovery money invested has been returned. The fact is the cause goes back to Progressive policies, loosening of policy to increase home ownership and the bat shit crazy funneling sub-Prime loans through Fanny May et al to reduce bank loan exposure etc. Then the idiocy of derivatives compounding the fundamental problem. I'm not a fan of those not keeping track blasting BS. Seriously!

On a broader note, it seems insidious to claim a certain ideological solution when the same ideology created the problem in the first place.

Comment

On a broader note, it seems insidious to claim a certain ideological solution when the same ideology created the problem in the first place.

The trouble, GOM is that this is how EVERYONE across the political spectrum sees it. I'm on the right. So I agree with you 200%.

I see so many leftist MRAs (or leftists generally) crying for the state to get MORE involved say family and marriage.
Crying for the state to MORE involved in big business and regulation of the corporate sector. etc etc.

And like you I see this exactly as insane and wrong headed and absurd.

Looking for ideological solutions from the same ideology responsible for the problem.

But the problem is that leftists usually see an inverted version of the same picture. And the way social media and trigger warnings and hashtags and 'likes' work these days is that people are increasingly breaking off into isolated cliqs populated by people who share their perspective. They put everyone else on block and they reach with shock and horror when those same people show up at election time and cross the 'wrong' box on their ballot.

"Being a cunt doesn't make you wrong." ComradePrescott

Comment

That's an interesting one. Because right wingers oppose that because they see it as a left thing. And leftists oppose it as a right thing. What you end up with is a mass of people 'united' on opposition while coming at it from different sides of the horse shoe.

There seems to be tendency to blame everything as emerging from an ideology and particularly that of the other side. Different words for the same thing. In the UK Gordon Brown was PM when the UK Banks were bailed out, but by then Labour was being called Red Tories. The political spectrum doesn't fit the purpose of describing reality. Back to core is needed. Pull out the issue, describe what happened, identify then with the data see what is behind it.

It's pretty easy to shift it to the other side though, if things are just dumped as belonging to the other. Right wing are no cleaner on that one than anything else, corporatism and consumerist corruption and pandering to whatever group needs to be owned by the mindset that yields it.

Yeah. It's outrageous. As much as I'm anti-left I think the EU essentially telling the people of Greece that they can't have the left wing government they voted for is just fucking insane. And the only thing more shocking about this is how 'unshocked' the average European seems to be about it.

Too many average Europeans have drunk the cool aid about a EU state, and stay schtum when the corruption and centralisation is pointed out. The EU was expanded against it's own rules for geopolitical reasons to stop former Eastern Bloc falling back under Russian influence. This bloc is now a bloc within a bloc and the rest of the EU is in denial. The EU is going to flop because it can't face reality. The bosses of the EU are insanely driving towards a super state because they got superpower envy. What was a good idea for a free trade zone, is now a bad idea for a government.

But are they 'wearing left wing cloaks' or is a 'cloak' all that much of this left wing stuff ever is in the first place?

Really depends what you use as your identifiers, corporatism, consumerism, militarism, mass surveillance and privacy invasion in the UK are all tagged as right wing policy. Along with privatisation and croney capitalism.

Taxation/redistribution, welfare, public services, nationalisation, pacifism, feminism all tagged as left wing policy

Reality though not so neat right wing UK governments do plenty of left wing things, no increase in taxation is the holy grail of the Tories. But the protect the no increase in corporate taxation, leave income tax unchanged but increase NI (which is just another national direct tax) and have increased VAT more than any other. The tax burden on individuals remains the same regardless. No governments actually do any meaningful devolution of power from central government. At the end of the day regardless of principles the release of real authority from their own hands, just sticks in there throats way too much. England is by far the largest UK nation, it's also insanely centralised, local areas and regions can't even set some of their most basic function policies for such as housing, transport, health, schools or local council tax rates. GDP/GVA's for regions are not even possible to know, and just estimated.

Well what the media calls the far right is really just all the people the new left left behind. The further the left disappeared down it's own asshole worrying about Feminist bullshit and 6'5 250lbs trannies' right to take a shit next your wife and 8 year old daughter the more they simply alienate the core base upon which their power plays depend.

Yup the divide here is almost direct split through class lines. Working class are the grounds for the alternative right growth, led by upper middle class nationalist / protectionist. The bulk of the middle class employed are left wing. Middle class mercantile self employed from shop owners to small factory owners are split depending who their customer base is, and whether they see themselves as new economy or traditional trades. New economy being very left wing on social policy, traditional trades being more laissez faire.

The ordinary little working man. Feminism has played a critical role in increasingly turning the left into a place where the working man is not only not welcome but to blame for everyone else's issues.

Feminism is still being given a free pass all over the UK. Speaking out is treated like saying you want to jail women who don't put out. Too many still don't realise or admit what's being done. It's embarrassing. Last time feminism got a deep hold in the Left the country lurched to the Right where they weren't influential and they were pushed back. Since then though there's been two even three generations reaching majority. Feminism infiltrates all main parties, institutions, exactly like cancer. Tories have succumbed to it. Phillip Davies is still a lone voice. With feminist taking over so much in the media the politicians are keen to pander to them. Feminism is more the true hidden face of the mainstream left and right in the UK than socialism and capitalism.

I've seen directly how feminists operate politically. They approach any group of any size and offer to help them become woman friendly to secure more votes from women. Once let through the door the rot begins and doesn't stop.

I think social media is turning everyone into a diva. Surrounded by 'yes men' and people who 'like' everything they say. With ignore/block buttons for everyone that tells them things they don't want to hear.

Yup.

"...especially when it comes to communication, it can be observed, if it is not a negotiation it's a war."

Originally posted by menrppl2

Can't live with em, life is great without them.

Comment

I think social media is turning everyone into a diva. Surrounded by 'yes men' and people who 'like' everything they say. With ignore/block buttons for everyone that tells them things they don't want to hear.

Comment

The trouble, GOM is that this is how EVERYONE across the political spectrum sees it. I'm on the right. So I agree with you 200%.

I see so many leftist MRAs (or leftists generally) crying for the state to get MORE involved say family and marriage.
Crying for the state to MORE involved in big business and regulation of the corporate sector. etc etc.

And like you I see this exactly as insane and wrong headed and absurd.

Looking for ideological solutions from the same ideology responsible for the problem.

But the problem is that leftists usually see an inverted version of the same picture. And the way social media and trigger warnings and hashtags and 'likes' work these days is that people are increasingly breaking off into isolated cliqs populated by people who share their perspective. They put everyone else on block and they reach with shock and horror when those same people show up at election time and cross the 'wrong' box on their ballot.

Maxx, there is plenty of blame to go around...it was a long road of bad decisions by both sides; one trying to increase access to home ownership, the other not doing due diligence. The housing crisis was fueled by easy money and subprime loans. It was ignited by hiding these problems from investors in derivative manipulation and leveraging and reducing mortgage risk to banks and investors by funneling through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and bundling them for the secondary market investors. These problems were identified before the crash.

My overarching point here is risk needs to be placed back at the lender and government needs to stop using incentives which creats and environment of bad decisions at the ground level.

If the Left, Right, and all in between are going to prevent this from happening again there needs to be a level of knowledge. Demanding more regulation only puts a band-aid on the problem. I'm not saying no regulation, but appropriate regulation and management.

Comment

Maxx, there is plenty of blame to go around...it was a long road of bad decisions by both sides; one trying to increase access to home ownership, the other not doing due diligence. The housing crisis was fueled by easy money and subprime loans. It was ignited by hiding these problems from investors in derivative manipulation and leveraging and reducing mortgage risk to banks and investors by funneling through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and bundling them for the secondary market investors. These problems were identified before the crash.

My overarching point here is risk needs to be placed back at the lender and government needs to stop using incentives which creats and environment of bad decisions at the ground level.

If the Left, Right, and all in between are going to prevent this from happening again there needs to be a level of knowledge. Demanding more regulation only puts a band-aid on the problem. I'm not saying no regulation, but appropriate regulation and management.

For what it's worth-- nobody can talk about welfare and people living on the dole without *also* pointing to the trillion dollar slow-motion bank robbery which was TARP.

Comment

For what it's worth-- nobody can talk about welfare and people living on the dole without *also* pointing to the trillion dollar slow-motion bank robbery which was TARP.

I don't disagree. What I will posit, even though I'm not a proponent of TARP, is that the stakes were much higher on a scale. I don't see this as a mutually exclusive discussion. How we address our safety net and care for our disadvantaged is directly dependent upon the health of our economy. One does not come at the expense of the other IMO.

I think I pointed out, if my research on the topic is accurate, that the TARP monies have been recovered to the treasury. "TARP recovered funds totaling $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested."

So you know where I'm coming from. I have fewer issues with our social safety net in the discretionary budget, I think we can all agree it is small potatoes, and it should be managed to ensure it takes care of our most needy and not be abused. My major concern right now is for our entitlement programs; SS and medicare. They are currently unsustainable and need to be addressed.

Note: I view TARP as a bandaid fix to the fundamental problems I explained earlier.

Comment

I don't disagree. What I will posit, even though I'm not a proponent of TARP, is that the stakes were much higher on a scale. I don't see this as a mutually exclusive discussion. How we address our safety net and care for our disadvantaged is directly dependent upon the health of our economy. One does not come at the expense of the other IMO.

I think I pointed out, if my research on the topic is accurate, that the TARP monies have been recovered to the treasury. "TARP recovered funds totaling $441.7 billion from $426.4 billion invested."

So you know where I'm coming from. I have fewer issues with our social safety net in the discretionary budget, I think we can all agree it is small potatoes, and it should be managed to ensure it takes care of our most needy and not be abused. My major concern right now is for our entitlement programs; SS and medicare. They are currently unsustainable and need to be addressed.

Note: I view TARP as a bandaid fix to the fundamental problems I explained earlier.

GOM--

I have no fault with your historical accuracy.

But I think we can practically-- not absolutely-- point to the bogusness of TARP by the simple fact that they did not distribute the money to the distressed homeowners who were under water-- who would have simply used it to then turn over to the bank, which would have helped out TWO constituencies for the same dollar. And in fact, one could quite comfortably (and righteously) argue BETTER DESERVED that dollar since they were the ones ultimately having to dig deep to scrape it up to hand over to the banks. The *CONSUMERS* saved the banks and basically got shit on for doing it.

I view TARP as a money grab by people who already had plenty at the expense of people who were desperate and in line to lose their homes.

I don't mind helping out those in need, but not at the expense of those who *really* need it.

Comment

But I think we can practically-- not absolutely-- point to the bogusness of TARP by the simple fact that they did not distribute the money to the distressed homeowners who were under water-- who would have simply used it to then turn over to the bank, which would have helped out TWO constituencies for the same dollar. And in fact, one could quite comfortably (and righteously) argue BETTER DESERVED that dollar since they were the ones ultimately having to dig deep to scrape it up to hand over to the banks. The *CONSUMERS* saved the banks and basically got shit on for doing it.

I view TARP as a money grab by people who already had plenty at the expense of people who were desperate and in line to lose their homes.

I don't mind helping out those in need, but not at the expense of those who *really* need it.

Again, I don't disagree. I actually lived in the first housing bubble crash in California in the early 90s. A prelude to the 2008 debacle. Back then, there was a fever of over purchasing and speculative investment with the idea that housing was only going to increase in value. Arms were a big draw. I did not play that game at the time realizing it was a fools game. I came out of that bubble and the 2008 bubble well ahead. the challenge is delineating who was caught up in the debacle simply focusing on their ability to pay and have a home within their means and those who took a more speculative approach. The later I have no sympathy for.

Then there are those who speculated on multiple homes and suddenly they were victims demanding recompense on the backs of real people wth problems. I have no sympathy for those either.

So this leaves us with the question; how many of those who lost their asses were simple folk living within their means, and how many were those caught up in the fever, lost their asses, and are riding the tide of the tragedy of the first. I don't know the answer and don't believe anyone really does. What I can guess is the former is a small proportion of the mass based on the size of the bubble.

Frankly, there were and are a number of programs to assist those honest brokers... TARP was a separate deal and again on does not operate at the exclusion of the other.

Comment

and those low rates havent encouraged growth. Businesses are still borrowing less.

Meanwhile, the home owner casino is back with a vengeance.
Well maybe not quite in the US but here in Oz, its outta control.
People are treating their homes as investments and using them as a backstop to fund their lifestyle choices.
Its all Audi and shares in SNAP here.

I paid 17.45% in the 90's for an unlivable dog-box.
The thing is I paid 90k which was something like 3x my earnings.
The same house now is in the order of $1M ... which is like 10x earnings.
Blind Freddy can see the cliff.

right now, everybody wants ion the gravy train and mum and dad investors own multiple houses
Superannuation funds, including self managed, are still buying up both domestic and commercial.

There are housing bubbles from Hanoi to Hanover ... and no grow in either gdp, pmi, or wages.
even at 4.5% the highly leveraged are going to have cash-flow problems in the near future.

This feels a lot like 1989 to me and, in my opinion, will not end well.

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one" - Charles Mackay

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. - Donne

"What we are seeing in this headless misandry is a grand display of the Tyranny of the Underdog: 'I am a wretchedly longstanding victim; therefore I own no burden of adult accountability, nor need to honor any restraint against my words and actions. In fact, all efforts to restrain me are only further proof of my oppressed condition.'
"It is the most perfect trump-card against accountable living ever devised." - Gladden Schrock

"What remains for most men in modern life is a world of expectation without reward, burden without honor and service without self" - Paul Elam

Comment

Well...
Here's my first problem...I don't get why leftists who have issue with intervention in Iraq which they see as snatch and grab operation for resources and capital also support an open boarder policy in relation to the very people who's nation's they believe their governments have raped and plundered?

Isn't that a bit like breaking a guy's nose then dropping your hands and waiting for him to counter?

Finally some one else noticed that! Why in the fuck would we bring in millions of people who we have been bombing for the better part of 2 fucking decades?

Maxx, I don't know if you read my red pill story, but here is the summary; I am a former liberal red pilled by my hatred of feminism and its new best friend the D.N.C.

This is the truth as I see it:

They (lib tards) believe that the United states is/hasCommitted mass genocide of Native peoples on its own territory
Committed mass murder in other peaceful nations
Is built on Stolen land
Constructed entirely with slave labor
Oppressed all workers everywhere
Conscripted forcibly the women of Europe to participate in this endevor
Responsible for human trafficking, slavery, and climate change
Won its independence as a result of psychopathic gun owning nut jobs that refuse to pay taxes

And these things are what so many of them believe and why it seems so many of them simply will not rest until it [The united States]is totally destroyed.
When viewed in that context so many of there demands suddenly make sense.

Take for example the bat shit crazy alliance of feminism and Islamism. The most barbarically patriarchal culture in recorded history. And they are
*get this*Allied.
This thinking can only possibly make sense in the context of 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend'

OH? You would like to Flame ME? ... ok, come now, don't be shy.... Step into the light....